NAME

/sprite/admin/userLog, /sprite/admin/lastLog − files containing information about user logins

DESCRIPTION

Each time a user logs into a sprite host, the system records information about the login in two files.  Each record in each file is a fixed-length ASCII string, so a particular record may be updated without the need to read and rewrite all other records in the file. 

One file records information on a per-host basis, while the other records information about the last login of each user.  The per-host file, /sprite/admin/userLog, has one record for each “port” of each host.  The ports are numbered, with port 0 reserved for the console of each host and ports 1-N corresponding to rlogin pseudo-devices 1-N.  The per-user file, /sprite/admin/lastLog, has one record per registered user, indexed by the userID in /etc/passwd. 

When a user logs in, the record for the user’s last login is updated to show the new login.  The record for the host and port into which the user logs in is updated with the same information.  When the user logs out, the latter record is invalidated to show no one is currently logged in on that port, but the record for last login is updated only when the user logs in again. 

Each record contains the following information, separated by white space:

validWhether the entry corresponds to a current login. 

hostIDHost on which user logged in. 

portIDPort on this host on which user logged in. 

timetime at which user logged in, or 0 when record is invalidated. 

locationstring indicating other host from which rlogin occurred, or empty. 

Although the information is stored in ASCII format, to make it sharable by machines with different byte orderings, internally the user log is accessed via routines that convert between ASCII and an internal C structure.  Refer to the documentation for the ulog library for information about this structure. 

SEE ALSO

ulog, db, login, finger

KEYWORDS

database, user log

Sprite version 1.0  —  February 16, 1989